


And We Could Touch the Sun

by Miaou Jones (miaoujones)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Body Exploration, Canon Compliant, Conversations With Words, Conversations Without Words, Emotional Connection, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Non-Sexual Naked Touching, Platonic Soulmates, Scars, Soulmate Gaze, Touch-Starved, VLD S07 Missing Scene, tag clarification in notes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2018-09-01
Packaged: 2019-07-05 04:51:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15856575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miaoujones/pseuds/Miaou%20Jones
Summary: "Why did you do it?" The tightness in his chest makes Shiro feel short of breath but he pushes on, holding Keith's gaze. "Why did you save me, after." Keith doesn't interrupt him, but Shiro stops there anyhow. His gaze slips from Keith's eyes to his cheek, to the scar burned into his face.





	And We Could Touch the Sun

**Author's Note:**

> It was hard to decide how to use the "relationship" tag for this. Shiro and Keith don't have a romantic or sexual relationship here, but what they do have is more than "&" implies—so in the end, I went with "/". If you're looking for romance or sex, though, this will only disappoint you.   
>    
>  If you're still in, please read on!

The darkness is deafening: as Shiro gazes into the space between the stars, he listens for the sound of his own breathing, his own heartbeat, but he doesn't hear them. 

Of course, he wouldn't hear his heart through his armor. He rests his palm against his diaphragm and feels it rise as he inhales; he tries an experimental exhale, and hears himself sigh. 

The sigh is echoed by a rustling from the Black Lion's pilot seat. He looks over as Keith stretches and gets to his feet. "I'm heading back to get some sleep. You should, too." Keith's head inclines towards the wolf, tail wrapped around him where he sits, focused on the blackness they're traveling through. "He'll let us know if anything needs our attention." Without waiting for a response, he turns to go.

Shiro isn't tired—or maybe it's that he's too tired to sleep. In any case, sleep is not what he wants, but he finds himself nodding at the quiet authority in Keith's voice, finds himself wanting to smile at how Keith has grown up into himself.

He doesn't smile, though. "Keith." He waits for Keith to look back over his shoulder, for their eyes to meet. "We should talk. It doesn't have to be now—"

The sentence ends without finishing. Keith holds the gaze for a wordless fragment of time before saying, "Okay. We can talk now, if you want." 

Shiro's internally rehearsed words, now moot, dissolve inside him. He didn't expect Keith to agree so readily. Especially with the way Keith was looking at him just now, the flicker in his gaze—it's clear Keith knows what he wants to talk about, and Shiro was sure Keith would say no conversation is necessary. Shiro wasn't going to push, but he thought he'd have to nudge hard. Maybe he doesn't know Keith as well as he thought. Not for the first time since coming back, he wonders if he knows Keith at all anymore.

Keith is still looking at him. Shiro blinks. "Yeah," he says, before he loses his nerve. 

He hasn't been avoiding Keith any more than Keith has been avoiding him. At least, he doesn't think he has. As Shiro follows him now, he can't help wondering if Keith was in on the conspiracy to put the two of them alone together when travel partners got rearranged at the last stop. Shiro didn't realize what was happening until it was settled. He thought he saw something flash in Lance's expression but it was gone before Shiro could study it, and he couldn't read the others. Maybe it had been his imagination. Or—he glances at the back of Keith's head—maybe it hadn't. 

Gravity is too light here for footfalls, and they reach the makeshift sleeping area in silence. 

When Keith starts pulling off the outer armor of his paladin suit, Shiro inhales more sharply than he means to. Keith stops and turns to him. Shiro didn't want to start whatever this conversation is going to be by questioning Keith's decision-making and tried to swallow his first thought with that inhale, but in the face of the way Keith is looking at him, he ends up saying it anyhow: "What if we're needed—"

"We'll rest better without these on." When Shiro doesn't respond immediately, Keith offers him a half-grin and reasons, "You didn't keep your armor on all the time on the Castle, did you?"

"No," Shiro says. "But—"

"How long does it take you to get into it?"

"Thirty seconds." It's a drill Shiro started practicing the day they became paladins.

Keith nods. "There you go," he says as he resumes taking off his armor, as if that settles it. 

Thirty seconds could be twenty-nine seconds too long if anything happens out there—but after a moment, Shiro starts to unfasten his armor as well, stopping when he's stripped down to the under-armor bodysuit, which he did always leave on at the Castle. The bodysuit is a second skin to him. Superior to skin. Superior to the Garrison's undersuits, even. In addition to regulating the wearer's temperature and wicking away excess secreted moisture, the nanotech in the Altean bodysuit provides musculoskeletal care far beyond simple compression. It's made his condition manageable in space even without access to the meds and other treatments he used on Earth.

He didn't have spasms while he was in Voltron’s inner quintessence, of course. At first it had been a relief—but then he had come to miss the pain, in a strange way. The pain had been something to feel. Something that told him he was still alive. He hasn't felt even a twitch since Allura transferred his consciousness to this body. He's not sure why, whether it's something to do with the clone's body or if something happened in the infinite void that altered his neurochemistry.

In any case, the bodysuit is a comfort. He touches his own shoulder lightly.

"Hey, Shiro." Keith is still standing, even though he's finished getting out of his armor. "I know what you want to say, and you don't have to. Actually." His face tilts down and to the side. "I don't want you to. It'll put me in a bad position, of either having to accept an apology I don't believe you need to make, or rejecting something you want to say. I know that's unfair." His chest rises and falls with the next breath he takes. "I'm always asking things of you—"

"Okay," Shiro says. Relief flushes through him with Keith's words; he does still know Keith at least a little bit, after all. 

"We can still talk, though." Keith searches his face. "Or, you can stay here, even if we don't talk." 

Keith is looking at him the way he did when they first met, when they were getting to know each other, in moments when he wanted something so much he forgot to guard his expressions. Shiro doesn't try to hide his own smile. "Okay," he says again. But he doesn't say anything else, doesn't move until Keith, sitting on the floor now, looks up at him.

When Shiro sits down too, Keith lies back. After a moment, Shiro lies next to him. He closes his eyes and looks into the dark, listening for a heartbeat, listening for something, for anything...

He has a feeling, maybe more a sense than a feeling, that Keith is listening too. 

Shiro shifts onto his side and looks at Keith's back, muscles taut beneath his bodysuit. "Keith, I'm not going to say the thing you don't want me to. But can I ask you a question?"

Keith rolls onto his side to face Shiro. "Yeah, of course."

"Why did you do it?" The tightness in his chest makes Shiro feel short of breath, but he pushes on, holding Keith's gaze. "Why did you save me, after." Keith doesn't interrupt him, but Shiro stops there anyhow. His gaze slips from Keith's eyes to his cheek, to the new scar burned into his face. It hurts to look at that scar but he looks and looks... 

That's not all that hurts Shiro in the memories he shares with the mind that occupied this body. He swallows. "After the fight. After what I did. After what I _said_ —"

He thinks he knows Keith's answer: because Shiro would have done it for Keith, because he would have done it for anyone. 

"You said my name. Do you remember—do you have memories of that?"

Shiro nods, wordlessly caught out by the response, throat tight at the memory that both is and isn't his.

Keith nods too. His gaze slides off and he doesn't say anything, and Shiro thinks that's the answer. And it's answer enough. But then Keith says, "I probably would have done it even if you hadn't said anything." He looks back up. "I don't think there are words; I didn't think in the moment. I looked at you and I did the only thing I could." 

As he takes in what Keith is saying, Shiro thinks he'll have to look away—but he gets caught in Keith's gaze. Keith has never looked at him like this before. No one has ever looked at him like this before... 

It's like... it's not like anything else he's ever felt, not like anything else he's ever known... 

It's beyond fathoming. 

So Shiro doesn't try to fathom it.

He takes a deep breath and lets the gaze open him. He takes it in, feels the gaze fill his lungs like breath.

He breathes.

He feels the gaze open to him as he gazes himself into it. 

As he falls into it, weightlessly; the gaze pulls him beyond gravity.

The gaze _is_ gravity. 

In the gaze Shiro is grounded and simultaneously floats.

Keith draws a slow, deep breath. "Oh," he says as soft as that breath, as soft as the gaze. "Maybe there are words after all." 

He's looking at Shiro—the way he's looking at Shiro, Shiro knows what the words are. He wants to tell Keith he doesn't have to say them, but—"Because I love you, Shiro."

Shiro means to look down, but he's still looking into Keith's eyes as he says, "It's not that simple, Keith."

Somehow Keith's gaze softens even more. "Yeah, it is. You're the one who taught me that." 

Shiro doesn't know what to say to that. He doesn't try to say anything. He looks at Keith, listens to himself not saying anything to refute Keith's words, listens to the quiet; he looks at Keith looking at him, feels the gaze, feels his heart beat, and listens to the sound of his own breathing.

"And anyhow, I've been waiting to give you a second chance." Keith dares a small half-grin with the callback to one the first conversations they ever had. "You never need one, though. You never mess up."

Shiro puffs out a breath as he grins too. "I mess up all the time. Look how many times you've had to save me since Kerberos." His grin flashes wider. "You've saved me a lot more than I've saved you."

Keith's smile fades but there are no hard edges as he shakes his head. "You saved me in the most important way possible." As Keith looks at him, Shiro feels the gaze envelop him once more. "You made me feel like a person again."

 _Oh_. Shiro wonders when the last time was that he truly felt human. Even before being imprisoned by the Galra and experimented on—sometimes when the pain kicked in on Earth, he felt _other than_ ; less than. Adam used to say that's why Shiro tried so hard to excel the way he did, why he aspired to be superhuman. When all he wanted, maybe, deep down, was to feel simply human... 

As he realizes he hasn't looked away at Keith's words, Shiro blinks—no, he doesn't blink; he finds himself looking and looking more...

He wants to say something, to acknowledge Keith's words, Keith's feelings, and to share his own. He slips even deeper into the gaze. 

"Keith," he breathes.

He listens to Keith breathing.

And then he feels Keith's breath. Shiro doesn't remember moving and wasn't aware of Keith moving, but they're closer together. Too close to see. Their mouths are close together; they're touching and he feels Keith: his breath, his breathing. Their breathing intertwines as they inhale one another...

And then, again without being aware of movement, he finds himself looking into Keith's eyes again. Looking at Keith's face.

Looking at Keith's scar. The scar he—

The exposed fingertips of his gloved hand touch down on the scar, dare to trace the edges. He shifts his gaze from his fingers to Keith's eyes, and finds them closed. Keith moves his head but instead of flinching away, he inclines into the touch. His eyelashes flutter but his eyes stay closed as Shiro brings his hand to his own mouth. He pulls the glove off with his teeth, then cradles Keith's face with his bare palm, the pad of his thumb caressing that scar with gentle, sweeping strokes.

Memories that are and aren't his flood him. He looks at the hand touching Keith and isn't sure whose it is; he's not sure who he is—

"Shiro."

Eyes open, Keith touches him. Touches his face, fingertips sliding along the scar that traverses it. Shiro feels his own lashes sweep down in a flutter. Even behind closed eyelids, he feels the gaze. Even in the dark behind his closed eyelids, he's in the gaze with Keith.

Keith's fingers map his face; linger along the open curve of his mouth, mapping his breath.

Keith is so close to him right now...

Shiro wants him to be closer.

Keith's touch slips away as Shiro sits up. He sits up too, an unspoken question in his eyes. Shiro inhales deep and wordlessly reaches for his own shoulder. 

He removes the protective seal over the end of his arm and peels back the bodysuit. He's never let anyone touch him here, not voluntarily. He thought he'd feel shaky, but he's calm, his breathing and pulse steady as he reaches for Keith, watches himself guide Keith's hand to the naked, truncated endpoint.

Keith doesn't flinch away from it, but there's a hesitance to his touch. 

"Please." It's all Shiro can say. 

It's enough for Keith. Cupping his palm against the stump, he holds Shiro for a long quiet moment before he begins to explore. He runs his fingertips reverently up over the bicep to Shiro's shoulder, then down again; this time, Keith gently peels back the bodysuit as he goes up. Even though Shiro has reduced sensation along the scar sites, he feels Keith's touches with a quiet intensity that rolls through him. The carefulness, the _care_ in Keith's touch makes him sigh more deeply than he means to. 

Keith looks at him and smiles. He reaches for the top fastenings of the bodysuit and starts to undo them.

Shiro puts his hand over Keith's to still it. 

"Shiro." Keith holds the gaze as the moment stretches. "Trust me." 

There's no inflection but Shiro hears the question in it. He takes a breath, feels his lungs fill; expels that breath and takes another, and nods.

They stand to undress themselves before lying down again, facing one another. Keith reaches for him first, starts with his face as he resumes mapping Shiro, fingertips traveling down, learning his scars, memorizing his body with touch.

When Keith brushes against his cock, Shiro swiftly reaches for him, fingers forming a hard circle around Keith's wrist to still him. "It's okay," Keith says, holding Shiro's cock gently, taking Shiro's hand gently with his other and guiding it down to show him Keith's own cock as soft as Shiro's. "It's okay, Shiro," Keith murmurs again, as if he knows Shiro wants—needs—everything to be soft right now.

And everything _is_ soft right now: Keith's gaze, his breathing, his movements as he shifts closer and arranges their cocks to nestle together, the curl of his fingers with Shiro's. "It's been so long," Shiro sighs. Time was hard to track in the infinite void so he doesn't know how long, exactly, but it feels _so long_ since he could touch anything; since he could be touched. So long since he could feel...

He doesn't say that aloud; Keith doesn't need him to. "Here, c'mere." Keith shifts again, nudging Shiro onto his other side, tucking up behind him, his arm around Shiro's waist. He bends at the elbow, angling his hand to rest, fingers splayed, against Shiro's chest.

Shiro lets his eyes fall shut as he reaches for Keith's hand, caressing the back of it, his breathing synching up with the languid strokes.

"I haven't been intimate with anyone since—" He stops. 

Something soft and easy that might be laughter drifts to him from Keith. "I've never been intimate with anyone like this."

 _Oh_ , Shiro thinks. Yeah, that's true for him too: it's never been like this with anyone else.

"Is this real?" he hears himself say, the words somehow making their way through the thickness at the base of his throat. "Are you real?" 

"Yeah," Keith says, and Shiro turns so they're facing each other again. "And so are you." 

The glimmer in Keith's eyes slips onto his skin. Shiro reaches to brush the tears away, feels the glimmer transfer to his fingertips. Feels the glimmer in his own gaze.

They look through the glimmer into each other's eyes. They're looking into each other in ways Shiro doesn't know how to describe, didn't know were possible... As the gaze fills him now, he feels places he'd thought closed off opening up inside him; places he never even knew exist inside him open up. 

He's spinning in the gaze. The spinning doesn't make him feel dizzy but looking away from it does: the spinning steadies him.

Shiro knows what he wants but he doesn't know how to ask for it. It's not exactly a kiss, what they did before. 

Breathing one another is what it felt like, so: "Breathe me. Please."

Keith comes to him and touches their open mouths together.

Shiro starts to float in the breathing—"Can you." He rolls onto his back, reaching for Keith, wordlessly urging Keith to straddle him.

Keith looks at him curiously. He swings his leg over Shiro but doesn't settle himself. "I don't want—" Hands resting lightly on Keith's thighs, Shiro stops himself from pushing down as he gazes up.

He gazes up at Keith gazing down at him, until he's spinning again. 

"I want your weight," Shiro says quietly. "I was weightless and floating for so long... I just want to feel your weight." 

He doesn't know if that will make any sense to Keith and he starts thinking how to explain it—but Keith doesn't question it. He settles himself on Shiro's thighs, arranging himself so the head of his cock rests softly against the thick heavy flop of Shiro's. There's a shy sweetness to the smile he offers Shiro. "Is this good?"

Feeling the solidity, Shiro nods. Breathes deep and looks at Keith and feels solid. 

It should be sexual, being naked like this with Keith. It should feel sexual, but somehow it doesn't; it feels like completion. It feels like being whole.

He wants to say something, and says Keith's name. He wants to say more; he feels something filling him and opens his mouth, but no words come—

"It's okay, Shiro." Keith smiles, his gaze so soft. "I know it's not easy for you to say, but you don't have to, because I already know."

_Oh._

As he looks at Keith now, Shiro knows what it is he wants to say. He does want to say the words, but right now all he can do is breathe. 

Keith said it's okay and Shiro takes him at his word. He puts his open mouth to Keith's again, and breathes love.

**Author's Note:**

> Can you feel the wake up sign?   
>  Rising up, two of us   
>  We can touch the sun   
>  We’re closer now with every touch   
>  We burn it up, you light me up   
>  And we could touch the sun   
>  — "Walking on the Sun," OneRepublic ft. Calvin Harris


End file.
